Otto's badge phone rang. Again. He answered it. Again.

"Hello, and yes, we did see the message in the new SHMUMBERMAN comic, thanks!"

"You're welcome," Otis replied. "But that's the problem. You're not the only one who saw it."

The bullpen behind Otis was pure chaos, with Odd Squad agents frantically answering ringing telephones.

Owen moved down a line of phones. "Hello. Yes, we know. We're taking care of it. Hello. Yes, we know. We're taking care of it. Hello. Yes, we know. We're taking care of it. Hello..."

Olympia was holding six receivers, trying to talk into all of them at once. "Yes, we saw it! We know! We're trying to contact them now!"

Orchid answered a phone. "Hello, Sybil's Lawn Care Service. No, sorry. Wrong number. Bye." She hung up and tossed the phone in the nearest trash can, where it continued to ring. She rolled her eyes. "Typical!" Putting her feet up on her desk, she resumed reading her comic.

"Yeah," Otto told Otis. "It's crazy over here too."

The sound of ringing telephones echoed all through Otto and Olive's Odd Squad bullpen as well.

Nearby, Olive was on the phone. "Yes, we saw, Mayor Brindle. Yes, we're going to take care of it, Mayor Brindle. Yes, Mayor Brindle. Please stop crying, Mayor Brindle..."

"Yeah. We're trying to catch our breath and figure out what to do..."

Just then, someone came through the glass double doors of their office.

"OSCAR?"

"Hey, guys!" Oscar waved, then held up the latest issue of SHMUMBERMAN. "Say, have you two seen this?"

Olive glared at him murderously. He didn't even notice.

"I tried calling you about it but the line was busy..."

#

In the other headquarters, Oona was leading a fashionably dressed woman over to the agents.

"Otis, Olympia, this is Tahilia Jefferies," Ms. Jeffries nodded at them. "She's the current writer on the SHMUMBERMAN comics. I went out and got her because I thought she might be able to explain about that message."

"Except I can't," Ms. Jeffries admitted. "I didn't write it. In fact, I edited it out. It kept popping up all through the production process. We kept taking it out and it kept reappearing. Who are Olive and Otto?"

Olympia was stunned. "You don't KNOW?" She rifled through her desk, finally producing an old comic. "They were sucked into this Shmumberman story! They fought Doctor Soup and everything! They even got their own entry in THE OFFICIAL SHMUMBERMAN LORE GUIDE!" She pulled out a trade paperback and showed her the 'Olive and Otto' entry.

"Oh," Ms. Jeffries flipped through the book. "Those guys. But where'd the thought balloon mentioning them come from?" She handed the book back to Olympia. "To be honest, I wasn't really planning on bringing them back."

"Well, apparently someone was," Otis observed. "Have you heard of a character called The Hoodoo Hypnotist?"

"Barely," Ms. Jeffries sniffed. "He's pretty lame. Nobody really bothers with him anymore..."

Olympia, meanwhile, just had a realization. "Tahilia Jeffries... Now I remember! You created Gelato!"

Oona looked over. "That was her?"

Otis, meanwhile, was confused. "She invented Italian ice cream?"

"No!" Olympia explained. "Gelato is this really weird character who keeps turning up in the comics nowadays. He used to have an ice cream cart but during a battle he got blasted by cosmic forces..."

Ms. Jeffries was distinctly uncomfortable. "Look, I meant him as a joke! He's not supposed to be a big deal!"

"And now he's a superhero with the power to shoot popsicles from his behind!"

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"He... shoots... popsicles... from his behind..." Otis tried to process this.

"He was a joke!" Ms. Jeffries insisted. "I came up with him when I was breaking in and drew him in my sketchbook! He was supposed to be an in-joke for my friends!"

"He... shoots popsicles..." Otis pondered this. "How is that supposed to be a super-power?"

"Well, some super-powers are better than others," Oona insisted.

"I..." Otis buried his head in his hands. Then he looked up. "Can he do different flavors?"

"Oh, sure!" Olympia answered. "There's this one panel where he's giving out bomb-pops and no one wants to take one..."

"That's... certainly understandable..."

A thought struck Otis. "What if he's constipated? Does he just make snow cones?"

Oona gasped. "I never thought of that! And I guess if he had diarrhea he'd make slushies..."

"LOOK, HE DOESN'T LITERALLY POOP POPSICLES, ALRIGHT?" Ms. Jeffries shouted. "It doesn't come out of his body! He has a sort of interdimensional portal to a popsicle dimension inside his butt that teleports the popsicles from there! That's how his power works!"

"Oh. Yeah," Oona nodded sagely. "That makes much more sense."

"Look," Ms. Jeffries was almost pleading. "Can we forget about Gelato for a second? You brought me here to discuss this weird message that appeared in my comic. Can we get back to that?"

"You're right," Olympia nodded.

"Of course," Otis agreed.

"We really need to figure this all out before... How does he keep from getting frostbite back there?"

Ms. Jeffries whimpered.

Just then, Orchid started, her legs dropping from the desk.

"Guys! You're gonna wanna take a look at this!"

#

Meanwhile, Olive and Otto were working with Oscar.

Olive was laying out the comic, open to the page where Doctor Straw was asking for help.

Oscar ran back in with two gadgets. "Here we are!" He handed one to each agent. "The put-it-away-inator and the save-it-for-later-inator!"

"Thanks!" Otto looked at his gadget. "Was this the one I had before?"

Olive looked at the gadget, then at Oscar. "Does it really matter?"

"What? Nah, no, it doesn't matter!" Oscar insisted. "At least I don't think it matters. I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter. Nah, it doesn't matter... I think. I'm almost certain it doesn't matter. At least it shouldn't matter. But... Nah, it doesn't matter. I think. It definitely almost certainly does not matter. I'm certain of it. I think. Then again..."

"OSCAR!"

"Uh..." He looked at them both, then reached over and switched their gadgets. "Just in case."

"Okay," Olive checked her pockets. "I've got the change-a-number-inator..."

"And I've got a back-up change-a-number-inator, if we need it..."

"And I've got the scissor-inator to cut Professor Straw free..."

"And I've got granola bars..."

Olive looked at him.

"What? We might get hungry."

Olive sighed and shook her head. "Let's go!"

They both zapped the book with their gadgets. There was a flash of light and they both vanished just as O'Malley ran in.

"Guys! Guys! Guy... Where's the O's?"

"Oh!" Oscar replied. "They went inside the comic book!"

He hurried over and picked up the comic. "See? There they are!"

"We're in!" Olive's word balloon read. "Key an eye on things, Oscar! We'll call if we need help!"

"Aye-aye!" Oscar saluted.

"Oscar!" O'Malley interrupted. "The main office called! The Little O's been kidnapped!"

"KIDNAPPED? What? Where? By who?"

"I'm guessing," O'Malley replied, "But I think it might have been a friend of that guy!"

He pointed with a trembling hand to the towering, hirsute creature that had appeared when Olive and Otto vanished and now crouched under the low office ceiling.

Oscar recognized him by the metal headband he wore. "Barrabas! The evil renegade Bigfoot!"

"From SHMUMBERMAN SPECIAL #5!" added O'Malley.

"Correct!" The beast-man growled in a harsh, choked voice from a throat not meant to mimic human speech. "When your friends opened the barrier to transport themselves into my world, I used my mind-force powers to transport myself into yours! And now I shall steal all of your strange gadgets, take over the hidden underground city of the Sasquatch, and conquer the world! Instead of hiding, we shall rule your puny race! You will serve us as you did in the Before Time!"

Oscar swallowed. "Oboy..."

#

"Sssssssssshe wassssssss in the main officccccccce. Ssssssssshe wasssssss wearing a uniform. How wassssssss I sssssssssupposssssssed to know?"

"She looks nothing LIKE Ms. O! Don't you even know what Ms. O looks like?"

"All humanssssssssss look the sssssssssssssame to me..."

The Hoodoo Hypnotist paced angrily around the table where the Little O lay sprawled, seemingly unconscious. Miss Mist floated nearby.

"I knew I should have gone myself! And if those wretched children hadn't caught me unawares, I would have!" He clutched the edge of his cape, whipping it about in frustration. "No matter! When this girl awakes, I shall use my mesmeric magicks upon her and compel her to tell me where Ms. O is hiding!"

Unseen by the villains, the Little O opened one eye. She looked around the room, then shut the eye again before either villain noticed.

"Then... Then I shall have my revenge!"

#

"So..." Orchid was explaining, "I was reading the latest issue of SHMUMBERMAID..."

Ms. Jeffries made a dismissive snorting noise.

"And then I saw this..."

She showed Otis, Olympia and Oona the comic.

The page showed an elderly woman in a tiara and an intricate red and pink gown sitting on a throne carved to resemble a huge, solid gold rose. She clutched a smaller solid gold rose in her hands.

"That's Vasteria," Orchid explained. "Oracle and high priestess of the lost undersea city of Shmumber-La..."

Ms. Jeffries sniffed. "So Woke..."

Otis looked at her. "I thought you worked for these people."

"I write SHMUMBERMAN," Ms. Jeffries asserted. "The cool book. Everyone wants to write SHMUMBERMAN."

"Guys!" Olympia shouted. "Read what she's saying..."

They read her series of speech balloons.

"There is a great crisis coming," Vasteria said in the comic. "A great reckoning, in which forces long forgotten shall rise up against the arrogance and the obliviousness which has kept it buried and lost. The entire multiverse is in danger of falling. Reality as we know it may be swept away. Our own and the realities beyond our own. Even the reality of those reading these words this very second."

Oona blinked. "Whoah. That is a plotline."

"B-But it's just a comic book!" Olympia laughed nervously. "It's not real... Is it?"

Orchid scowled. "Keep reading, Sherman."

They turned the page.

And that's when they came to the part of the comic with The Odd Squad Mobile Unit.

#

In the Shmumber-World, the Odd Squad Mobile Unit van was in submarine mode traveling near the ocean bottom and being visited by a beautiful and powerful sea-siren super-heroine.

"You have been summoned across dimensions by the magic of Shmumber-La," the strange, exotic, whispering voice of Shmumbra the mermaid echoed through the van. "You must aid us in saving reality from the forces amassing to assault it."

"H-How do we do that?" asked Oswald.

Before she could answer, Omar's badge-phone rang.

"Omar's House of Friendship!" He listened. "What? THE Olympia and Otis? Cool! What? We are? That is so amazing..."

He turned to his friends. "Guys! Olympia and Otis are calling! It turns out we're inside the latest issue of SHMUMBERMAID right now!"

"What?" Oswald looked around.

Omar pointed up. "Hey, there they are!"

The team waved up at the agents reading the book.

Osmerelda giggled. "This is great! I always wanted to be in a comic book!"

Oswald, meanwhile, was still lost. "How is this even possible?"

Orla struck a pose. "If there is one thing I have learned in my five hundred years, young Oswald, it is that anything is possible. Even at times the patently absurd."

Omar was still on the phone. "Huh? Oh. Okay, I'll ask." He turned to the mermaid floating in front of the van. "Hey, does any of this have to do with some prophecy an Oracle lady just gave a couple pages back?"

"It does," Shmumbra replied. Then she hesitated. "But before we continue... We must defend ourselves!"

A squadron of sleek underwater vessels shaped like manta-rays appeared in the waters around them. The tips of their metallic wings glowed and lasers fired at the OSMU van.

#

TO BE CONTINUED...